Anti-Domestic Violence Initiative Working In High Point

HIGH POINT, NC -- An initiative by the High Point Police Department to curb instances of domestic violence appears to be working, according to the captain in charge.

The initiative started in 2009 to focus on domestic violence offenders, change their behavior and stop the problem.

Numbers provided by the department shows the return rate of repeat offenders has significantly dropped. Out of 1,000 offenders identified by the department, only 8 percent have repeated their offense in the last two years.

High Point police hope their next success story is William Edward Anderson.

He is one of the repeat offenders and was booked this week and is being held under a under a $600,000 bond.

Police say he went to his ex-girlfriend's house Monday, beat her and destroyed some of her belongings.

"Basically, I open the door, saw a car outside and he peeks his head around the corner and saw that I had a guy in here and just punched me in my eye and my lip. And he told me the next time it'd be a bullet," Anderson's victim told WFMY News 2. "He could have shot me or something. I could have opened the door and anything could have happened."

WFMY News 2 has chosen to not identify her because of the nature of the case.

Police tell us, Anderson just got out of jail for assaulting her last August.

"He's a problem. He's a problem," said Captain Tim Ellenberger. "He's now on the A-list. We're not going to try to deter him anymore. We're just going to try to prosecute him."

Ellenberger says the department uses a list to rank domestic violence offenders from "A" to "D".

"A" offenders are the most violent and/or are repeat offenders.

"D" offenders are violators who have triggered a 911 call, but haven't been charged.

Police focus most of their attention on getting the A-list offenders off the street.

Violators ranked lower get help to try to keep them from hurting their victims again.

"What we've been able to do is reduce the number of calls, reduce the number of assaults, and we have reduced the number of arrests that we make, too," Ellenberger said.

The police captain says when the initiative went into effect, a third of the city's homicides were linked to domestic violence.
But since 2009 only one homicide has been tied to an intimate domestic partner.

As for Anderson, he's facing about six charges related to the domestic violence incident. He also has a drug charge pending.

Police say they are working with prosecutors to put him away, for a long time.